Ganolink? Linkon? Ganink? Galink?
by Twisted Mackeral
Summary: Kawaii Ganondorf!
1. Chapter 1

After getting a little tired of torturing Link, I was looking around for another victim to ranmarificate. Then I remembered, Gerudo are hawt.

* * *

Finally I could take no more. I collapsed to my knees and wretched my rotten guts out of their ruptured, pulped torso. Lumpy green slime dripped down the front of my armour, pooling around my knees, and soaking into the faded crimson fabric of my cloak. I kept on vomiting until my chest was empty, until something still beating passed my lips and plopped onto the floor of my chamber. Then, vaguely surprised that there had still been a heart in there, I fell forwards on the floor and waited to die.

I wasn't expecting to have to wait long.

_How had things gone so wrong? It was madness! What chance did a boy from a forest with the useless Triforce of Courage stand against the Great King of Thieves, wielding the Triforce of power and a lifetime's arcane knowledge._ I added this to the list of inexplicable and unpleasant events in my life, above getting dumped by Nabooru but below finding out my mother was a couple of 400 year old witches.

-sigh-

Zelda was standing just beside my head. I wished I had just the energy to stand up and give her a good, solid punch.

"Poor man. Without a pure heart, you could not control the power of the Triforce of Power."

_Yes, well, it's easy to grow up pure-of-heart when raised in a Castle of gum-drop smiles and lollipops, isolated from the realities of life. Let's see you grow-up pure-of-heart when raised in the Fortress, where stealing is surviving._

I listened as Link calmly cleaned his blade and slid it back into its sheath. He was calm, unaware that my final spell was about to bring the entire Castle down on top of him. With my cheek pressed to the stone, I could feel the vibrations build to a tremor then to a violent shaking. Zelda screamed.

"With his last breath, Ganondorf is trying to crush us in the ruins of the Tower! Link, you need to hurry and escape!"

Impressive. Such a perceptive girl. She hadn't inherited the Triforce of Wisdom for nothing, had she? Her order struck me as a little odd however. If anything, it should've been the guy with the lump of pure condensed courage implanted under his skin saying it.

"I'm not leaving without you!" yelled Link.

"Don't worry, I'll be fine. I have to stay here and use my powers to cast Ganondorf into the Sacred Realm."

There was scuffling, as if Link had tried to drag her away by the arm and she'd resisted.

"Zelda, he's dead!"

"No. I have to make sure he can never trouble anybody ever again."

"I can make sure right now," the young man declared angrily.

The cold blade of the Master Sword settled against the back of my neck. I could feel the _goodness_ of it burning into my skin.

"Just leave!"

"… As you wish, Princess."


	2. Chapter 2

"I know you're alive."

Zelda's petite hands slid beneath my ribs and with a great struggle she managed to roll my over. I slumped onto my back like a sack of dead potatoes. My glassy eyes stared at the ceiling, even as dust and rubble tumbled down from the crumbling roof and collected in them. They stung like a brooding leever but there wasn't even the energy left in my body to blink. Up beyond the roof, lighting crackled around a swirl of blue-brown clouds. Zelda's ugly, smiling face moved in to block the view.

"Well, not exactly alive. The Triforce of Power is stopping you dying. But, very soon, it'll consume your body entirely and the Sages will come up with the ingenious plan of trapping you in the Sacred Realm. Personally, that plan makes no sense to me. Why trap you in the very place you've been trying to reach?"

Her smile widened, revealing way too much teeth. She reached into her dress and drew out a long, slim blade. I recognized it; I'd seen the damage that she - or rather Sheik - had dealt to legions of my minions. She had skill with it. If my heart hadn't currently been squished beneath my own body, it would've skipped a beat. I strained to move anything, even a finger. If I had a finger it would at least be possible to trace tiny runes in the air.

For the first time in my life since first learning to hold a scimitar, the great King of Thieves was powerless.

In my mind, my hand hung, poised, over my mental list of crappy events, pen ready.

"No, I've got a better idea."

Zelda lent closer, her pale face just above mine, her rank breath filling my nostrils. She held the knife hilt lightly in her fingers, so that the point of it swung over my eye.

"Impa told me you killed my Father whilst he slept. I suppose it must have looked something like this."

_You're still mad at that! That was seven years ago! And the man was getting old anyway._

The knife suddenly flashed down. My right arm was pulled by the hand, stretching the armour, revealing the gap between arm plate and gauntlet, and the knife slipped in, slicing to the bone. She drew the knife round in a circular motion, cutting swiftly through muscle and tendon, until only the bone held my hand on.

_Don't you dare-_

I heard a snap.

_Owww._

The Princess stood. In her hand she held mine and was looking at it curiously, like she had a new toy. Then she turned and tossed it over the side of my Tower.

Zelda came back, wiping her hands on her dress, lay there, and checked my vitals. They must've been practically nonexistent as she was feeling for a pulse for minutes, even as the floor buckled and large slabs of building broke away and slid off. She had the patience of a sage.

"That didn't kill you...I think. As I thought, the Triforce pieces are not actually _located_ in the hand. So... to Plan B. I always prefered Plan B. You're going to love it too."

-sigh- The item _Anything from now on _was added to my mental list.

Theatrically raising her hands to the tormented skies, she called out for the other sages' powers. A big mother of a spell then. The six streams of energy burst into this realm and coalesced in Zelda's hands.

_That reminds me; have Igor research spells that don't take five minutes to build up if I ever get out of this._

The golden ball of energy Zelda commanded formed itself into a point, which became a beam, which hit me in the torso like a punch of the Goddesses.

And I still wasn't dead!


	3. Chapter 3

Sometimes, in the desert, the sandstorms blow so strong that they blast sand grains straight through the skin of anybody foolish enough to be out there unprotected. It happened to me once (its on the list). My mothers found me giving food to an injured wolfos pup and threw me into the wilderness as punishment. I learned my lesson in the agony of the storm. Each grain of sand punctures the skin like a burning needle and stays there, agitating for days, but one can't scratch or the skin, rubbed red raw and bloody by the sandstorm, will just come off under ones finger tips.

The pain of the spell was similar, in that it felt like being exfoliated to death; only much, _much_ deeper this time. Like soul-deep.

The golden energy was surging through my body in waves, wracking it with spasms, and where it ran things changed. My skin was peeling away, exposing fat and flesh that was evaporating away into the air. Huge pieces of muscle shrank to almost nothing, tauntened, or just uncoiled themselves from my bones like snakes and slid off to another part of my body. My skeletal structure creaked and broke itself into new shapes.

Organs blossomed beneath my fluctuating ribs. The instant that lungs were formed, I put them to good use. The screams were only cut off when my new stomach appeared and I started dry wretching. Eventually my body realized there wasn't even bile yet to throw up and I collapsed, limp again, and closed my eyes, as stuff continued to happen to my body.

And then, when it was over and I opened my eyes, it wasn't my body anymore.


	4. Chapter 4

"What did you do to me?"

Zelda just kept laughing, so hard now she was almost gasping for breath.

I found the strength to push myself up onto my hands and knees. Hands? Plural? My right had grown back it seemed, though I found this little compensation for the loss of more than half of my body mass of muscle. I'd _earned_ that muscle, built up through decades of training, sweating and suffering. Did she have _any idea_ how much subscription to the Fortress Training Grounds had cost?

Muscle was by far the only thing that was missing but, for now, I refused to acknowledge it. This was not a good time to go into shock. I continued to kneel there, my head sunk so low with exhaustion it almost looked like I was kowtowing to Zelda, which sickened me.

_Stand up and fight! At least she can't take that dignity away from you._

I pushed off with my hands, falling back onto my haunches, and from there I was able to lever myself onto shaky feet. Sections of huge, black, leather armour fell off around my shrunken frame. The pants hung for just a second around my waist.

Thank the Goddesses I chose to wear my tunic underneath this morning. Truly, this was my lucky day(!)

"This doesn't change anything, Zelda. I shall still annihilate you!"

Tears of laughter made tracks of white down her ash-grimed face. She was struggling to gather the breath to speak so she just pointed and laughed harder, clutching her stomach with her other hand. I recognized that over-the-top, arrogant, eyes-opened-just-a-little-wider-than-a-sane-person's laugh; I'd spent days practicing it in front of a mirror. Trust her to get it perfect first time.

"Stop laughing at me!" _Damn it! That was supposed to have sounded like a threat; it just sounded desperate and whiny_._ Note to self: take up smoking to get that deep, huskiness back._

The Castle gave one last great spasm as the Keep crumbled out. My stomach lurched and my ears popped. I was falling. Zelda was waving, her body disassociating into a cloud of hundreds of golden sparkles flying up through the air. I tried to step towards her, gave up halfway, and fell through the air where Zelda had just stood. It took me a long time to hit the floor because it was falling faster than I was but, when I did, I hit it hard. Rock and masonry, thrown up by the collapse, cascaded back down, crushing and burying me.

The world went black and I felt no more...

... and I felt no more...

... felt no more... please?...

...how hard was it to die around here!


	5. Chapter 5

Laying in the decimated ruins of my once proud castle, trapped in a weak body, and with my powers stripped, only a cold abscess where their presence had been. She had taken everything away. And she had made sure I couldn't die, just so that she could see me squirm. But she hadn't counted on this.

Link was alive. He had survived the destruction of my castle. My final breath and my most powerful spell, wasted. I would've felt angry were it not that he was unconscious, defenseless, not five meters from where I lay.

Zelda had taken everything away from me; now I was going to take everything away from her.

I found myself almost giggling as I rolled onto my front and pushed myself up onto my hands and knees. A stain-glass window, once portraying my purging of Hyrule, lay in a thousand pieces nearby. I pulled myself towards it; selected a long, jagged piece from the glittering fragments; and began to crawl my way towards the young hero.

In Gerudian legend there are tales of a fearful desert creature called the meduselah, whose glance alone could turn a warrior to stone. For many years, it terrorized the encampments of the nomadic Gerudo, until the great King Perseusdorf had the surface of his shield polished into a perfect mirror. Using this, he was able to reflect the gaze of the beast back at it, and it was turned to stone.

It was the exact same ancient relic that now lay against Link's side. As I caught my own reflection in it, it had a similar effect as it once did on the meduselah. I froze.

Little of what had been me remained in the person reflected in the mirror shield. Only the jewel in my forehead and the short, fiery hair allowed me to recognize the girl in the mirror as myself. The healthy green glow of a long-time dark arts practitioner was gone. replaced by the ill, pale green of someone ready to collapse. My proud, vulture-like nose was reduced to something shamefully small, even by Gerudo female standards. Worst of all-

I could take no more. Shutting my eyes, I crawled on, until my hand connected with the body of Link. Rolling him over, I held his head in my lap and lifted the serrated shard of glass to his neck. His eyelashes fluttered.

"I should thank you for letting me kill you again," I smiled, digging the point in and pulling it across his throat.

I suddenly grew short of breath as pain tore across my own neck. Blood spattered the ground. Clutching at the gash in my neck with my hand, I stabbed at Link's slowly-rousing body.

I'm ashamed to say that I cried out in pain at the feeling of my abdomen being cut open. The glass fragment fell from my hand and shattered, as I hurried to stem the flow of blood from both wounds at once.

_Crafty...little...bitch,_ I thought slowly, falling backwards and unconscious.


	6. Chapter 6

_Gods', she's bleeding a lot_, Link realized with panic as he ran down into the ruins of Hyrule Town. The girl that lay limp in his arms had already lost more blood that he thought possible. If he didn't find immediate help, she'd be dead.

Redeads lurched out of the darkness towards the smell of blood but their screams fell on deaf ears as Link sprinted past them, through what had been the town's centre and up the stairs to the Temple of Time. The girl's head lolled horribly as he did, widening the gash in her neck, and he moved his bloodied hand to support her head.

The Temple of Time would be a safe, clean place to put her down, he thought, kicking the grand wooden doors open, and there would be Sages to heal her. But the sounds that reached his ears made the place seem more like a battlefield than a safe haven. Voices raised in contention echoed out from the chamber that held the Master Sword and its pedestal.

"- the exact kind of reckless, thoughtless, selfish behavior I would expect from a Princess! But from a Sage I expect a certain level of control over one's actions. The power you wasted...the time it will take to summon it once again...rash, wasteful, if you weren't chosen by the Goddesses themselves I would strip you of your position."

Link had never heard Rauru angry. The man had always seemed so calm and grandfatherly that it was a few second before he could pin the voice to the image of the jolly, chubby guy in his head. And why was he shouting at Zelda? With little attention for the argument, he placed the girl down against one of the walls of the Temple. She coughed weakly, causing more blood to gurgle out of her lips and throat.

The unmistakably shrill voice of the Princess rose up before the echoes of Rauru's voice had settled. "_Wasteful? _You were the one wanting to send him to the sacred realm!"

"A prison capable of containing him for thousands of years," Rauru barked.

"A _prison_ that he has been trying to reach for seven years! Am I the only one who sees a flaw with your logic?"

Searching through his considerable pockets, he found a bottle of red potion left over from the battle against Ganondorf and hurriedly applied the contents to the wounds in her neck and her chest, casting an unconscious glance in Zelda's direction as his fingers moved over the soft, tanned skin of her stomach.

Red potion was effective at treating most injuries and ailments but he didn't know if it could do anything about replacing lost blood. The flow of it had lessened; were the cuts healing or was she just running out of blood? No, the edges of the wound were coming together. Good.

"So you thought it better to use the power, **_our _**power, for yourself? To turn him into one of your playthings. The **Great King of Evil** is not a plaything."

"My plan is a hundred-fold better than yours. He is powerless, we can keep an eye on him. You said yourself that the threat of Ganon may be eternal, that he will always return somehow or in some new form. Now we have a chance to finish him, not by killing or trapping him, but by breaking his will."

He wasn't sure what they were talking about now. He attention was on searching his tunic for a half bottle of milk he knew was there. He'd expected to have used all this stuff during the fight with Ganondorf, which had seemed oddly short and somewhat anti-climactic. Well, the important thing was that he was dead.

"Don't die on me now," Link told the girl, finally flourishing the milk. He lifted it to her lips and poured a little into her mouth. She started to choke, reopening the wound.

Kuso! He was no good at this. He held her head in place until the coughing subsided and the cut had resealed, and then ran down to the chamber at the back of the Temple of Time.

All the Sages were present, though all but Rauru and Zelda were keeping out of the argument, understandably. The Sage of Light stood before the pedestal, his body surrounded by a raging aura of golden light that illuminated the chamber, and he was shouting at the top of his considerable lungs at the Princess of Hyrule, who stood at the foot of the altar, unfazed by this display of fury from a man Link had previously thought looked rather cuddly.

"And unlike you I was able to restrict the control he has over the Triforce of Power."

"Young lady, I have been a sage for thousands of years. _You_ have been one for all of five minutes! Do not attempt to tell me my job." Rauru dispersed into a flock of golden sparkles that ascended quickly. "You just wait until _they _hear about this," his disembodied voice uttered ominously.

"Don't you warp away from me while I'm talking to you," Zelda yelled after him.

The Rauru sparkles disappeared. Zelda said something about him that was wholly unprincessly. The sages standing off to the side exchanged awkward glances as the holy silence of the temple crept tentatively back.

"Zelda-"

Zelda turned to Link. "You're alive," she said.

"Erm, yeah... there's somebody I need you to have a look at." He was slightly put out by the emptiness of her greeting but let it pass for expediency's sake.

"A Gerudo girl? Jewel in forehead?"

"Yes... I woke up and she was there with her throat cut."

A smirk spread across her flawless features. "It worked perfectly. Where is she?"


	7. Chapter 7

Regaining consciousness had been unpleasant; waking to find myself totally drained of energy, surrounded by six sages and a Hero of Time. That was when I gave up all hope.

My memories are hazy. My brain was numb and my head would alternate between lolling on to my chest and lolling back, so that my field of vision alternated between staring at their feet and staring at the roof. But this is what I remember:

Zelda had gloated her rotten heart out and expanded on the subtleties of the spell to the other sages. My powers had been stripped. My body had been linked to the Sages or the Hero of Time - in effect, the further I went from their presence, the weaker I would become, until eventually I'd pass-out. It effectively put me on a very short leash. And - this part she was especially proud of - any wound I inflicted on an innocent being would manifest on my body. A kind of instant justice.

The most noticeably affect of the spell - transforming my body into that of a young woman - had been simply to impress upon my mind the powerlessness of my situation.

As if I couldn't take a hint.

Impa had pandered to her Princess, praising her ingenuity, wisdom, and mastery over magic.

Darunia and Ruto had clearly felt uncomfortable with the idea of my freedom (or what little there remained of it), but they had sworn allegiance to the Princess. If she thought it was the right decision then so did they.

Saria had been most eager to braid my hair. She was lucky I was too weak to move my fingers.

Nabooru had been strangely reserved. She hung at the back, occasionally casting me dark looks, and didn't say a word. Perhaps her problem was that she'd always seen women as superior and, in her eyes, I'd been given an upgrade. I'll never know.

I hadn't the energy to move and my vocal cords were clogged with congealed blood, so I hadn't had room to fully express how monstrously pissed-off I was, beyond a few scowls.

Link had just looked confused by the whole thing, even going so far as to offer me a half-glass of milk, which I'd refused.

I could sure have done with it now though. The letterbox in the cell door opened and a tray of slop was dropped through. Had it not been cold and congealed to the gray it would have spilled. A fly stuck to the surface served as garnish. The letterbox snapped shut.

Shortly after deciding to leave me in my present state (until Rauru returned, they had added in fearful tones) the Sages had me thrown in jail and hadn't bothered to check up on me for the past two days. This just pissed me off even further.

The room they were keeping me in wasn't even a real jail; it had once been a guard house, keeping watch over the entrance to Hyrule Town in the days before I'd shattered the drawbridge from within and dumped the pieces in the moat. It's shadowed, hooded occupant had been very eager to vacate the premises when six sages showed up on his doorstep. He'd given me a friendly nod as he gathered up his poes and left.

They'd removed the wooden boards barring the windows to allow thick beams of light to cut through the dust-filled air of the prison. They'd done it intentionally to spite me. I'd tried putting my hand in the sun's rays once and had been horrified to find that it didn't hurt or weakened me at all. All that dark energy that had coursed through my skin was gone and the light helped to drive home its absence, along with the absence of the power that had once sustained the storm blanketing Hyrule Town.

I wanted to block up the windows. They looked out over the vast plain of Hyrule Field, almost to the lands of Gerudo Valley, to freedom, but were just too thin for even this skeleton body to fit through. Even if I could escape, I'd never make it.

I'd been trying my hardest to find a loophole in Zelda's spell. No luck. As much as Rauru was against the idea, I had to admit that it had me stumped. All of my plans seemed to require magical power, assaulting somebody, or equipment or a magical artifact that lay far beyond the confines of Hyrule Town.

At nights, the wind whistled through the windows. There was no bedding. I didn't sleep, didn't dare think what Zelda and the sages would do to me while I slept.

So I was starving, freezing, seething, powerless and... female. Things could not get worse.

Something stepped out of the shadows. A man. I found myself standing, wishing now that I hadn't chosen a corner in which to sit. He was young, wearing a simple, light-blue tunic on his slim frame. I was most drawn to his eyes, which were red.

He smiled.


	8. Chapter 8

"Who the hell are you?" I demanded.

He smiled and surveyed me with those dispassionate, dull red eyes. They were familiar and not in a good way, I felt. I found my body shrinking back against the cell wall, trying to fit itself as tightly into the corner as possible.

Where had I seen those eyes before? I recalled Impa and Sheik having red irises, but was that where this feeling was coming from? Was he a Sheikah? My eyes shot to his ears but any Sheikahn earring was obscured behind his grey hair.

"Identify yourself now or I'll-"

"Or you'll do what?"

That was a good question. What _could_ I do?

Scream?

The King of Thieves doesn't scream.

"I - I don't think you want to know what I'll do," I finished lamely.

The man shrugged lightly. "I already know what you're going to do."

He began to walk across the cell towards me. "You're going to do exactly what I tell you to do and make this as easy for yourself as possible."

"Stay back! I'll kill you."

"Please. Try."

A knife appeared in his hands, resting gently between his fingers. Darting forward with a sudden movement, the thin sliver of metal passed through the cloth of my tunic midriff and touched against my skin. I was frozen, unable to move or talk, unable even to think of a way out. My mind was a mess of fear, a feeling so alien that it confused me. And the confusion begat fear. And the fear begat confusion. He was standing very close now. He raised the knife again to make another cut-

- and stopped. An expression of mild annoyance passed over his face. With a single glance at the door, he stepped away and vanished in a flash of light.

The door swung open. The Hero of Time stepped into the room.


	9. Chapter 9

He stood on the other side of the room, looking uncomfortable but wary; a grim expression on his face but his left foot idling awkwardly. I didn't know whether to be happy or angry. The relief of being saved came with the bitter aftertaste of realizing that I needed to be.

I decided I didn't much care and allowed my legs to give way and my body to slide down the wall into a huddle. I noticed that my arms were shaking. I tried holding them down with each other.

Link glanced around the room. "I thought I heard voices."

"It was just me," I said. My voice was shaking too. I brought it under control. "You're here to gloat?"

Link shook his head. "I wanted to say that I don't agree with what Zelda did."

"Your opinion means so much to me," I said, my voice laden with sarcasm.

"And I've asked her to rethink her decision and allow us to finish our fight. Even though I _had_ already finished it," he added under his breath.

Normally, I would have detested his self-righteous honour. But right now, I did just want to finish things. One way or another.

"I assume she said no?"

He looked wounded, like a dog kicked by it's master. "Not in so few words," he said. "She sent me from her sight. I think she's just stressed from everything that's been happening-"

"Do not torture me with information about your relationship. I have suffered enough."

Link smiled. "Right. Of course. Sorry." There followed the most awkward silence ever known. On one side of the room, the Hero of Time, fully equipped for battle; on the other, in a little ball, his great opponent, dressed in rags. "If she changes her decision, I'll come see you again... "

He knocked twice on the door and spoke quietly to the guard on the other side. The lock opened.

"Wait."

He turned to me, surprised. This was nothing compared to the surprise I was feeling. Which was nothing compared to the shame I was feeling.

"Yes?"

"... I... want you to kill me."

"I can't do that."

"Why? Because I look like a woman?"

"It isn't that. You're unarmed. It wouldn't be right."

"Link, trust me when I say this: were you unarmed, I would kill you. And then I'd kill Zelda. And then your horse. And then that lonely farm girl you have stashed away for a rainy day. And then everybody else."

"No."

"Please."

"Sorry. Look, I don't know if this is some trick or something, but I'm not going to do it."

I got to my feet. They were still shaky. "What if I attacked you now?"

He shrugged. "It'd be futile."

"What if... what if..."

I couldn't say it. Link turned again to leave.

"... what if I told you somebody just tried to rape me," I said softly.

* * *

Would not want to be in that room right now. Talk about awkward.


	10. Chapter 10

No. This was the most awkward silence ever.

I watched Link's brain attempt to change direction too fast. His ears twitched.

"I'd assume you were saying it to get moved out prison or to have the spell removed," he said eventually, very carefully.

"And I'd assume a man who dresses in a skirt and tights and hangs around with fairies was a flagrant homosexual. Forget it."

I slid back down and focused on staring at the floor. My face felt as though it was on fire. I rubbed angrily at my eyes.

"Okay, he said. "Let's pretend that you're not trying to dupe me into doing something stupid. Who was it?"

"He looked like a Sheikah."

"Right. And since Sheik is the last Sheikah left alive, you're going to suggest that -"

"I know what Sheik looks like, idiot, and it wasn't him."

"Her," Link corrected. "... We talked about it."

"That witch has serious gender issues," I spat. "It wasn't her. He had a different face, hair- "

"Before you suggest it, Zelda just has the one transformation and she can't change it."

"Damnit, I'm not lying to you!"

It had been intended as an indignant roar but when it came out, it was just a desperate plea. I took a deep breath, trying to regain some composure, but as Link started moving towards me, I almost jumped to my feet. Noticing me startle, he stopped, looking suddenly embarrassed. Ashamed myself, I avoided looking at him and continued to run angrily at my eyes.

"You're... crying?"

I glared daggers at him. Heck, I glared broadswords.

"An evil sorcerer can't even have red eyes anymore?" I muttered, pressing both my palms hard into my eyes

"If... _if_ you're telling the truth, I still won't kill you. But I'll have extra guards posted. And have some placed in the cell with you."

"Protecting me from a man of a race I nearly destroyed using men of a race I nearly destroyed. Why do I not feel reassured?"

"They're good men... they wouldn't... but I can stay with you tonight. We'll think of something in the morning."

"... If you must."

"You're welcome."


	11. Chapter 11

Link sat in the corner across from me, a blanket around his shoulders, the Master Sword unsheathed and wedged into a crack in the stone flagging. He held the hilt in his hands - he was taking no chances - and rested his chin on the pommel, eyes half closed, dozing, but there was no way he was going to fall asleep in the presence of Ganondorf, depowered or not. Even if I couldn't physically hurt him, I was still the King of Thieves.

He yawned and looked up. "Do I call you the King of Thieves now or the Qu-"

"King," I bit off sharply. "The King of Thieves."

"Right."

"Or the Prince of Darkness," I added.

He nodded and said, "not the..._ King_ of Darkness?"

"There are things in the Darkness _much_ more powerful and dangerous than myself," I said. It was truthful, but I said it with the intention of casting a dark cloud over what he must presume was now his vacation. "I do not delude myself into thinking I am King."

"Things like what?"

"You will find out soon enough."

This was less truthful. The dark forces I spoke of were dangerous indeed but only really to people such as myself who went out of their way to dabble with them. Otherwise they were kept securely out of Hyrule by magic or dimensional walls. Link was perfectly safe to frolic on the grass with his princess, or whatever else he did with his life when he lost his purpose for living. i.e. killing me.

Still... if any of my specimens survived the destruction of the castle and escaped...

I hoped the Zoron had survived. I'd had quite a soft spot for my chimera; quite an achievement of biological engineering. It's skin was certainly hard enough to survive the debris...but it had still had it's natural weakness to fire and the smoke would have clogged it's gills. Darn.

"Maybe you should think about telling me," Link said. "Since I _am_ doing you a favour."

My shrug was as nonchalant as I could manage. "Demons, elemental forces of anger or hate or lust, masks-"

"Masks?"

"Happy masks."

"The Happy Mask Shop?"

"Has things in it's inventory that could tear worlds asunder. The Happy Mask Salesman has adornments that can corrupt the innocent, give the wearer terrible powers." I laughed fondly. "He even has one which explodes on your face at the slightest provocation. No wonder he's so happy; he hands them out to old ladies."

Link stared disbelieving at me over the top of his sword. Unsurprising really, considering the salesman was an expert in masks; able to hide his true nature behind false geniality and servitude. "You were lucky enough to only try his depowered stock. The race masks he has? Normally they have the power-"

-to completely change one's form. Of course! Why hadn't I thought of that sooner. All I needed to do was get him to make a Ganondorf mask or Male Mask or something and I'd be... well, I'd still have the power-sapping enchantment on me... and the proximity enchantment, but at least I'd be male again. Did I have any favours to call in? Last time I saw him I was chasing him out of Hyrule Town with a flaming sword and minions at his heels; not to mention I'd killed off half of his customers...

"-the power to what?" Link asked.

"Huh? Oh... nothing. Go to sleep."

"But you said-"

"No. No, I didn't. It was all lies. I was trying to scare you. But you have the Triforce of Courage so not much point doing that. I grow weary of your talk. Good night."

Laying down on the floor, I pretended to sleep and started to scheme.

* * *

That night, when I eventually fell to sleep, I had a dream. I was floating in another world, surrounded by bright blue light that flowed like liquid, and before of me hung Nabooru's head, the neck roughly severed, her eyes wide and screaming, her mouth moving soundlessly, desperately at me.

I woke to find Link shaking me.


	12. Chapter 12

"Nabooru is dead!"

Knocking his hands away, I ran to the door and pulled at the handle. I pulled until my muscles were close to tearing. There was a time when this would have caused the door and most of the surrounding wall to come away. It didn't budge.

"Open the door! Nabooru is dead."

"Nabooru isn't dead," Link said, grabbing me by the arm and attempting to pull me away from the door. "It was a nightmare."

"Open the door!"

The letterbox flicked open and the eyes of the guard appeared at them. "Sir?"

"Don't listen to him. Keep the door shut." Unable to pry me away from the door handle, he wrapped his arm around my neck and yanked. I let go before he crushed my windpipe, and was thrown roughly across the cell. He had the Master Sword ready by the time I'd climbed back to my feet.

"It was just a nightmare. Now settle down."

Reality was reasserting itself. The terror that had filled me as I slept was quickly being replaced with confusion and exhaustion. The vision already seemed less real to me. Had it just been a nightmare?

"It wasn't a nightmare," I said to reassured myself. "It felt real. She was dead."

Link watched me in that careful, suspicious way that I was starting to find very familiar. Everything I said he expected me to prove. I was thankful when he stepped back and spoke through the door: "Go find Nabooru. If you can't, find one of the other sages." Turning his attention back to me, he said, "tell me about this dream."

I told him. It didn't take long. He was waiting expectantly at the end of it.

"That's it? That's all there is?"

"I thought it was quite to the point," I said bluntly. I was angry at him for not letting me go. I wanted to be out, helping Nabooru, even though it was clear she was beyond help by now.

He must have picked up on this. He looked at me strangely. "Since when have you cared about Nabooru?"

It seemed like such a silly question but, when I thought about it, he was right. For the last ten years, I'd wanted her dead. What had changed?

_It's obvious what's changed_, an obnoxious, truthful part of me replied.

But there had been a time when I'd cared about her. When I'd cared about a lot of stupid things.

The minutes passed. My anxiety grew.

"I had a dream once. It showed me the future. You were in it."

"I'm flattered," I replied.

"Perhaps your dream was prophetic."

"It felt distinctly present-tense."

More minutes. Link moved to the door, pushed open the letterbox and peeked out.

"Should he have been this long?" I asked

"No."

He drew an ocarina from his pockets; a simple, crudely-carved piece of wood. He'd been demoted from the ocarina of time it seemed. That powerful artifact was probably back in the Princess' possession. I realized he was planning to warp out of here, and my relief that he was finally doing something was mixed with my sudden, returning fear of being left alone.

"Let me go with you."

Again that suspicious, penetrating stare. He still thought this was all part of my plan to escape.

"You'll be fine."

"Don't - "

"I'll only be a few minutes. Besides, the guard and the sages are the only people with keys to this place."

"But - "

"Don't worry."

He had vanished into a cloud of golden particles before I could say another word.

Almost immediately, the lock turned. The door swung open.

"I thought he'd never leave," the man with the red eyes said, stepping inside my cell. "Now. Where were we?"

* * *

Link found Rauru waiting for him as he materialized in the nave of the Temple of Time.

"Ah, my boy! Have you seen the Princess? I was wishing to continue our earlier... dialogue."

He shook his head. "Have you seen Nabooru?"

"Um... I think she intended to return to her people soon. Without a leader, they are in turmoil."

Link hurriedly thanked the sage and headed for the door.

"I trust you're keeping a watch on Ganondorf," the elderly sage called after him.

"Don't worry. He's perfectly safe."

The area outside the Temple was already showing signs of rejuvenation. The sages had done stunning work. Darunia had blessed the soil, Ruto had called down pure rain to cleanse the land, and Saria had summoned forth what little life remained in the burnt soil. A thin layer of green shoots was already poking up between the rubble and cobblestones.

He found the guard quickly. That much blood stood out strongly against the green.

His body lay across the fountain, the blood pooling into it. His throat had been slit and there was a single, gaping cut in his chest, as if from a knife-strike that had been delivered with tremendous power. The blood was still flowing and warm. Link searched quickly through the guard's pockets. The prison key was missing. He started to run.

The door to the cell was wide-open. Ganondorf was laid against one wall; cut, beaten, bleeding, broken.

"Believe me now?" she cried.


End file.
